Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'British Empire'
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1
Oldcorn, Megan Lowena. "Falmouth and the British Maritime Empire." Thesis, University of the Arts London, 2014. http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/13354/.
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At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Cornish port of Falmouth was an important base within an ever-expanding British empire. From here, people, letters, goods and information travelled back and forth from Cornwall to the rest of the world. This thesis investigates the extent to which Falmouth was a significant part of Britain’s maritime empire during the period 1800-1850, looking specifically at four areas of interest. First, it argues that Falmouth’s Packet Service played a significant role in intelligence gathering during the Napoleonic Wars, victory in which led to major expansion of the British empire. Second, that the town developed Cornwall’s mining expertise to the extent that it could be exported to new colonies, or become instrumental in spreading the influence of informal empire. Third, that the import of plant specimens from the colonies had a direct effect on class-based hierarchies of power in and around the town. And finally, that contact between the British and foreigners in and from the port led to renegotiations of identity based on race that were inextricably tied into colonialism. The role of Cornwall in the dialogue between Britain and its colonies, and the importance of Falmouth as a port within the British empire, have previously been neglected in academic study, with attention given to larger metropolitan locations such as Liverpool and Southampton. This thesis continues work exploring imperialism within one specific locality, shifting in focus from the urban to the rural. In doing this, a diversity of written and archival sources are used to discuss how several elements of empire came together in one place. The work demonstrates that Falmouth was a site clearly affected by colonialism, and was to a certain extent influential within it due to its maritime significance.
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Chasin, Stephanie. "Citizens of empire Jews in the service of the British Empire, 1906-1940 /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2008. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1690289521&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.
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Lewis, Colin A. "Barkly East bells and the British Empire." The Ringing World, 2002. http://www.ringingworld.co.uk.
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Colin Lewis was Professor of Geography at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa from 1989 until his retirement at the end of 2007. In 1990, with the strong support of the incumbent Vice-Chancellor, Dr Derek Henderson, he instigated the Certificate in Change Ringing (Church Bell Ringing) in the Rhodes University Department of Music and Musicology - the first such course to be offered in Africa. Since that date he has lectured in the basic theory, and taught the practice of change ringing. He is the Ringing Master of the Cathedral of St Michael and St George, Grahamstown, South Africa.
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Ryan, James. "Photography, geography and Empire, 1840-1914." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.262032.
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This thesis considers the relationships between photography and geography in the wider context of British imperialism, c. 1840-1914. It distisses reproductions of sixty photographs. Chapter one situates this research within current theoretical debates concerning the histories of photography, geography and British imperialism. It also discusses the sources used, and provides a detailed outline of the thesis. Chapter two considers the photographic representation of landscape on geographical expeditions, particularly scientific expeditions in central Africa and the travels of commercial photographers in northern India. Chapter three focuses on the role of photography within military campaigns. A detailed discussion of the Abyssinian campaign (1867-8) reveals how photography and geography were associated in imperial campaigning. Chapter four traces the language and imagery of 'photographic-hunting'. A discussion of practices of hunting, exploration and conservation, particularly in Africa, shows how photography was a means of representing the imperial domination of the natural world. Chapter five explores the photographic survey and classification of 'racial types'. It situates the associated uses of photography in anthropology and geography within the context of Victorian scientific ideas on race, both within the empire and in Britain itself. Chapter six discusses the relationship between the representation of racial 'types' abroad and the social 'others' of Victorian London. It presents a case study of the work of the professional photographer John Thomson, placing his work in China and London in the context of his ethnological and geographical interests. Chapter seven explores Halford Mackinder's work with the Colonial Office Visual Instruction Committee, 1902-1911. It shows how photography was used to promote an imperial vision of geography, but raises also questions as to its ultimate impact. Chapter eight provides a conclusion which argues that photography was central to the construction of imaginative geographies of empire in the period 1840-1914 and suggests that, through photography, such geographies continue to be reproduced today
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Thomas, Kenneth. "The British brewing industry and decolonisation of the British Empire, 1945-1970." Thesis, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.407272.
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Odams, Helen Jean Rachel. "British perceptions of the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1908." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1996. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e71bd343-edf5-419f-b769-65460065d044.
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The title of this thesis is 'British Perceptions of the Ottoman Empire (1876-1908). The thesis explores the 'cultural dimension1 of relations between the Ottoman Empire and Britain in this period, involving an examination of ideas about and representations of Ottoman society and its peoples. The overall aim is to stress the importance of these representations in in influencing and affecting relations between Britain and the Ottoman Empire. Nineteenth-century writings about the Ottoman Empire produce strong images of Ottoman society and steroetypes of the Turkish and Christian populations. These images are reconstructed and their significance examined. The approach is contextual and perceptions are analysed in the historical, material and cultural framework of late Victorian Britain. Descriptions of Ottoman society are treated as representations of that complex reality, with varying degrees of accuracy and inaccuracy, reflecting or distorting conditions in the Empire. In addition the relationship between older ideas and ideas developing at a new historical conjuncture of late nineteenth-century imperialism are considered important factors in determining the overall image of the Ottoman Empire in the late Victorian mind. In these ways the conclusion stresses the importance of, and the relationship between ideas about the Ottoman Empire, and the concrete factors of inter-state relations of which they are part. As such the subject contributes to an understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of nineteenth-century relations between a weak and strong state in the International system, and the degree to which culture and ideas are informed by these relationships of power. The study contributes to a greater understanding of the Eastern question and sheds light on many of the ideas that have come to influence modern historiography about the Ottoman past and the appreciation of Ottoman and European diplomatic history.
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Friend, Elizabeth Anne. "Professional women and the British Empire 1880-1939." Thesis, Lancaster University, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.246122.
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Slight, John Paul. "The British Empire and the hajj, 1865-1956." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610358.
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McInelly, Brett Chan. "EMPIRE AND THE RISE OF THE BRITISH NOVEL." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2000. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin965224819.
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Parkinson, Naomi Gabrielle. "Elections in the mid-nineteenth century British Empire." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/277097.
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This thesis presents a comparative analysis of the operation and significance of elections in the British colonies of Jamaica, New South Wales and the Cape, from 1849-1860, with a particular focus on the creation and reconstruction of ideas of politically-entitled British subjecthood over this period. Beginning with the first elections under a system of representative government in New South Wales and the Cape, and the early elections of the post-emancipation period in Jamaica, it questions how residents within these sites engaged with elections via the cultures of the canvass, public meetings, open nominations and viva voce polling. Through this study, I show how mid-century elections became critical sites for the articulation of social tensions and long-standing rivalries between competing settler groups within each of these colonies. I argue that the franchise, although highly demonstrative of the Colonial Office and settlers’ attempts to reconcile the respective competing histories of and justifications for colonisation, was often frustrated in practice. Cultures of violence, the manipulation of land-values, double-voting and bribery provided avenues through which laws governing the right to vote were transcended during elections. Through this thesis, I show how both residents and officials used such mechanisms to reshape the function and meaning of the franchise. I also show the lasting implications of such changes, particularly for their impact on nascent attitudes to race. Via a close examination of case studies across the three sites, this history broadens understandings of the mid-century as a period in which locally-elected legislatures increasingly became the prerogative of white ‘settler’ colonies and political rights increasingly centred on an individual, defined by his race and gender, as well as his class. Although affirming the importance of the period, it shows the complexities and inconsistencies of attempts to define the boundaries of enfranchisement over this period, and the impact of struggles to achieve it via changes to electoral law and practice. The comparison between New South Wales, the Cape and Jamaica illuminates the manner through which global discourses of reform, including those relating to bribery, privacy and order, would come to be repurposed within each site. It also serves to reinforce the striking role that attitudes to race would come to play in the formation and regulation of electoral practice across the British Empire. In this manner, this thesis aims to advance imperial historiography by highlighting the role of electoral culture as a reflection of and instigating factor in wider reconceptions of political rights across the British colonial world.
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Davis, AE. "The Empire at war: British and Indian perceptions of empire in the First World War." Thesis, Honours thesis, University of Tasmania, 2008. https://eprints.utas.edu.au/9195/1/The_Empire_at_War%2C_complete_copy.doc.
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This thesis discusses the relationship between the British and Indian soldiers in World War One. The first two chapters discuss the British officers. Chapter One shows how British commanding officers viewed the Indian soliders. Chapter Two shows how some lower-ranking British officers, due to combat experience and proximity to the Indian soldiers, changed their perceptions of people from India and the British empire. Chapter Three discusses the reaction of the Indian soldiers to combat in the trenches of the Western Front.
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Johnstone, Sara R. "A special relationship : the British Empire in British and American cinema, 1930-1960." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2013. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/58603/.
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This project sets out to scrutinize three decades of feature length fiction films about the British Empire produced by American and British filmmakers beginning in the 1930s through to the end of the 1950s. It compares British and American film in these three decades because such a comparative study has yet to be done and situating such a study within the changing historical contexts is important to chart shifting patterns in filmmaking in these two cultures. Focusing on film narratives that favour sites of modern colonial conflict as setting, namely India, the African colonies and Ireland, the project will chart how American and British filmmakers started from significantly different positions regarding the British imperial project but came to share increasing homogeneity of approach during and after the Second World War. This thesis shows that the relationship of American and British filmmakers to the British Empire changed dramatically after the Second World War and followed political developments. The new special relationship which grew strong after the war had far reaching consequences to the colonial and former colonial nations: the way in which American and British filmmakers portrayed this transition has important implications within film history.
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Knapman, Gareth, and gareth_knapman@hotmail com. "Barbarian Nations in a Civilizing Empire: Naturalizing the Nation within the British Empire 1770-1870." RMIT University. Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, 2008. http://adt.lib.rmit.edu.au/adt/public/adt-VIT20081029.123025.
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This thesis examines the emergence of the nation in the British Empire in the process of thinking about empire, economy and biology during the late-Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. A key aspect of this, Knapman argues, was concern over the dialectic of civilization and order as it related to the barbarian and the savage. The notion of the barbarian grounded the European nations in time and therefore constructing a sense of origin and particularism. Equally the savage and the barbarian placed non-European cultures in time. The thesis draws on a range of writers from eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, David Hume, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, James Cowles Prichard, Robert Knox and many other lesser-known figures. This is related to an examination of the nation in British representations of Southeast Asia, including colonial officials such as Stamford Raffles, John Crawfurd, and James Brooke who produced encyclopaedic accounts of their experiences in Asia. The thesis argues that while the complex grammar of the British Empire divided the world into spheres of civilisation and barbarism, it retained a special place for barbarians within the core and thus allowed for the naturalisation of nations within the context of an empire of civilizing others.
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Underwood, Jonathan Allen. "From empire to Empire: Benjamin Disraeli and the formalization of the British Imperial Social Structure." NCSU, 2006. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11042006-221836/.
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Throughout the last century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli?s influence and reputation as an imperialist has been praised, demonized, and denied. Though always a target of considerable political criticism, Disraeli?s advancement and, some might even say, invention of British imperial nationalism was celebrated by contemporary politicians, academics, and the general population who considered him ?inextricably entwined? with the notion of empire. However, twentieth century historiography largely downplayed and discounted Disraeli?s influence on late nineteenth century imperial British expansion by focusing not on imperialism as an ideology, but as a phenomenon of economics and power; aligning its genesis with the Industrial Revolution, and the socio-economic theories of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Atkinson Hobson. But, since the publication of Edward Said?s Orientalism in 1978, which reevaluated the cultural and social relationships between the East and the West, Disraeli?s impact on Britain?s colonial century has yet again come to the forefront of imperial British historiography. Disraeli?s rhetoric and political acumen regarding Britain?s eastern empire directly (through the proclamation of Victoria?s title Empress of India in 1876) and indirectly (through his assertion of Conservative Principles at the Crystal Palace in 1872) established a significant hierarchical social structure and consciousness that still pervades British culture today.
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Coutu, Joan Michèle. "Eighteenth-century British monuments and the politics of Empire." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.261659.
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Armitage, David. "The British Empire and the civic tradition, 1656-1742." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1991. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272968.
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Yildizeli, Fahriye Begum. "W.E. Gladstone and British policy towards the Ottoman Empire." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/25455.
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Beyond being an international question of the status of the Ottoman Empire, it was The Eastern Question that determined the course of diplomacy towards the Ottoman Empire throughout the nineteenth century. Lord Palmerston’s policy of preserving Ottoman territorial integrity (with domestic reforms), and guarding Ottoman independence against the Russian threat provided a close relationship with the Ottoman Empire based on mutual trust and friendship. Gladstone’s keen interest in the condition of Christian subjects of the Porte permeated every aspect of his long life. In arguing for Gladstone’s consistent attitude towards the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Christian subjects of the Porte since his early life, this thesis emphasizes the need to re-examine the degree of Gladstone’s passionate involvement in Eastern affairs which contributed significantly to the dynamics of British foreign policy. It argues that the political, humanitarian and ideological role that Gladstone played was far greater throughout his life than has previously been acknowledged. Given the inflammatory rhetoric that he employed in ‘Bulgarian Horrors’ pamphlet, the reasons for Gladstone’s indignation over Turkish administration as well as his attitude towards Islam demands attention. However, there is a clear distinction between Ottoman centric and Europe-centric historiography as to Gladstone’s engagement with Ottoman affairs. Yet, very few studies have analysed Gladstone’s central role in shaping of British policymaking towards the Porte. By placing Gladstone’s attitudes towards the Ottoman Empire at the core of the research, this study seeks to reassess the impact of Gladstone’s background and the key events for his concern with the civil rights and religious liberty of the Christian minorities of the Porte. It further explores whether Gladstone altered the historic British policy of maintaining Ottoman territorial integrity. An analysis is made, therefore, of Gladstone’s humanitarian perspectives and the ‘Concert of Europe’ approach by examining what he said and did in respect to Anglo-Ottoman relations throughout his long life.
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Karatani, Rieko. "Defining British citizenship, 1900-1971." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.310352.
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Mak, Lanver. "The British community in occupied Cairo, 1882-1922." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2001. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/29227/.
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Though officially ruled by the Ottoman Entire, Egypt was under British occupation between 1882 and 1922. Most studies about the British in Egypt during this time focus on the political and administrative activities of British officials based on government documents or their memoirs and biographies. This thesis focuses on various aspects of the British community in Cairo based on sources that have been previously overlooked such as census records, certain private papers, and business, newspaper, military and missionary archives. At the outset, this discussion introduces demographic data on the British community to establish its size, residential location and context among other foreign communities and the wider Egyptian society. Then it deliberates on the occasional ambiguous boundaries that identified members of the community from non-members as well as the symbols and institutions that united the community. Ensuing chapters on the community's socio-occupational diversity and criminal activities suggest that the British community in Cairo was not homogeneous. The community consisted of not only law-abiding upper middle class officials but of an assortment of businessmen, missionaries, and working-class maids and labourers; some of whom were involved in crimes and misdemeanours. The analysis concludes by investigating the diversity of reactions of Cairo's Britons to the challenge of World War I and the subsequent revolutionary period of 1919-1922. Due to time and space constraints, the discussion concentrates on the British community in Cairo, since for the most part, more Britons resided in Cairo than Alexandria. However, where appropriate to the thesis' key themes, data on the British in Alexandria will be included.
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Cornish, Rory Thomas. "A Vision of Empire : the development of British opinion regarding the American Colonial Empire 1730-1770." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1987. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1349793/.
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British colonial thinking was already well developed before the Stamp Act crisis of 1765-6 and this work traces the evolution of such thought from a period of relative neglect through a period of virtual renaissance in the 1750s to the formation of the North Ministry. Based upon both private and public opinion, the analysis concludes that the vision of Empire developed by 1770 was, in essence, the mercantile conceptualism which first encouraged the birth of Empire itself. Thus the work illustrates the strong degree of continuity in British colonial thinking, while at the same time, it provides a basis from which to interpret later British responses to the final crisis of Empire. Colonial theory did not exist in a political vacuum divorced from action, expediency or interest. The successive agencies which aided an awareness of colonial problems - the Board of Trade, the colonial expert, the Seven Years War, the Canada-Guadeloupe debate and the Stamp Act crisis are investigated in a series of interlinked chapters. The advocates of all interests constantly justified their relative positions through an appeal to history, precedent and preconception. This prevented any real progress in British attitudes towards Empire. Paradoxically, as British opinion became more concerned with the Empire its vision had little to do with colonial actualities. In short, even colonial expert opinion was illusory.
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Rannard, Georgina. "Empire and useful knowledge : mapping and charting the British American world, 1660-1720." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31476.
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Between 1660 and 1720 the British American empire expanded to incorporate new settlements, new trade routes, and it occupied a growing place in the British export economy. This expansion created challenges in transoceanic navigation and understanding of local geography, particularly as ambitions to trade in new markets in Spanish America gained traction. Mariners, merchants, scientists and policymakers required useful knowledge to enable their voyages and imperial activities. To meet this growing demand, print artisans in London produced an increasing amount of printed geographical information in the form of maps, charts and geographical texts. Draftsmen, engravers and printers applied their skill and labour to produce 179 maps and charts of the British Americas, and these artisans in turn benefitted from the income supplied by consumers. The increasing valorisation of empiricism and eyewitness knowledge resulting from the 'scientific revolution' also informed the inclusion of useful and practical information on maps and charts, and publishers asserted their credentials in claims to accuracy and novelty. Crown-sponsored voyages, buccaneers and chartered companies supplied eyewitness information from the Spanish Pacific and Caribbean, although the quality of information varied depending on the voyage itineraries and priorities. The growth of this market for maps and charts of the Americas highlights how the economic and territorial exploitation inherent to British empire was partly enabled by artisans living thousands of miles from colonial spaces. It further demonstrates the pivotal role of empire in Britain's long-term economic growth, and highlights that useful knowledge was central not peripheral to early modern socio-economic development.
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Guyer, Grant Penney. "The relations between Britain, India and Burma in the formulation of imperial policy, 1890-1905." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.359595.
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Pirotta, Joseph M. "The attempt to integrate Malta with the United Kingdom 1955-1958." Thesis, University of Reading, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365463.
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Rajan, S. Ravi. "Imperial environmentalism : the agendas and ideologies of natural resource management in British colonial forestry, 1800-1950." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.282158.
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Ryu, Jiyi. "Visualising and experiencing the British Imperial World : the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley (1924/25)." Thesis, University of York, 2018. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/21902/.
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This thesis examines the British Empire Exhibition (1924/25), the first example of intra-empire exhibitions during the interwar period. The Exhibition encapsulated postwar anxieties as well as imperial pride and inspired numerous, under-researched interwar propaganda activities, involving the visual arts. Following a substantial historiographical and methodological introduction, Chapter 1 examines the interrelationship between imperial knowledge and imagined (imperial) community. By rereading supplementary publications, I construe how a bird’s eye view and imperial abstract minds, incorporated in the public materials, developed an informed audience of imperial-minded individuals and groups, especially children. In this chapter, I also suggest a new approach to connecting an urban core and its suburbs through imperial urban networks, moving beyond existing scholarship on dominant economic, political, cultural and ceremonial locations in the heart of the city. The ideas of suburban imperialism and circulation expanded the physical experience of the miniaturised empire at the Exhibition to a large number of homes, extending imperial citizenship from the public to the domestic. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the Palace of Arts section of the Exhibition, and provide a close analysis of the public art displays at Wembley, which challenge the conventional division between modernist and non-modernist, and the tension between art and craft/design within an imperial framework. Chapter 3, in particular, underlines the importance of the Queen’s Dolls’ House, designed by Edwin Lutyens, unveiled to the public in the Palace of Arts at Wembley, and now held in the Royal Collection. The House epitomises the characteristics of Britain as a nation and an empire through its English exterior and British objects within.
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Coffey, Rosalind. "The British press, British public opinion, and the end of Empire in Africa, 1957-60." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3271/.
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This thesis examines the role of British newspaper coverage of Africa in the process of decolonisation between 1957 and 1960. It considers events in the Gold Coast/Ghana, Kenya, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, South Africa, and the Belgian Congo/Congo. It offers an extensive analysis of British newspaper coverage of Africa during this period. Concurrently, it explores British journalists’ interactions with one another as well as with the British Government, British MPs, African nationalists, white settler communities, their presses, and African and European settler governments, whose responses to coverage are gauged and evaluated throughout. The project aims, firstly, to provide the first broad study of the role of the British press in, and in relation to, Africa during the period of ‘rapid decolonisation’. Secondly, it offers a reassessment of the assumption that the British metropolitan political and cultural context to the end of empire in Africa was extraneous to the process. Thirdly, it aims to contribute to a growing literature on non-governmental metropolitan perspectives on the end of empire.
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Jeppesen, Christopher. "Making a career in the British Empire, c. 1900-1960." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/252295.
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Kark, Daniel History & Philosophy Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences UNSW. "Equivocal empire: British community development in Central Africa, 1945-55." Publisher:University of New South Wales. History & Philosophy, 2008. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/41225.
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This thesis resituates the Community Development programme as the key social intervention attempted by the British Colonial Office in Africa in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A preference for planning, growing confidence in metropolitan intervention, and the gradualist determination of Fabian socialist politicians and experts resulted in a programme that stressed modernity, progressive individualism, initiative, cooperative communities and a new type of responsible citizenship. Eventual self-rule would be well-served by this new contract between colonial administrations and African citizens. The thesis focuses on the implementation of the Mass Education programme in Nyasaland, and, more specifically, on a small but significant Mass Education scheme at Domasi, that operated between 1949 and 1954 in Nyasaland??s south. The political and social context in which the Mass Education scheme was implemented in Nyasaland is important. The approach taken by the government of the Protectorate before the mid-1940s is discussed, and previous welfare interventions described and critically assessed. The initial approach to Mass Education in Nyasaland is also dwelt upon in some detail. The narrative concentrates upon the scheme itself. Three themes emerge and are discussed successively ?? the provision of social services adapted to the perceived needs of Africans, the enforcement of environmental restrictions and inappropriate social and agricultural models, and the attempted introduction of representative local government. All three interventions were intended to promote the precepts of Mass Education, but instead resulted in the extension of state administrative power. The manner in which this occurred is explored throughout the thesis. Mass Education at Domasi did not result in the creation of a new form of citizenship in Nyasaland. It contributed instead to a breakdown in the narrative of social development and eventual self-rule that had legitimised British rule. The riots that occurred in 1953 tore at the precepts that underpinned the Mass Education programme. The immediacy of self-rule and independence resulted in a shift in emphasis within the Colonial Office and the colonial government in Nyasaland from social intervention and to constitutional reform and political development. There simultaneously emerged a new rural transcript, one that privileged open opposition to the colonial social prescription over subtle and hidden rural resistance. At a time when nationalist politics was in disarray in Nyasaland, rural Africans spoke back to colonial power.
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Blunt, Alison. "Travelling home and empire, British women in India, 1857-1939." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq25020.pdf.
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Bolton, Carol. "Robert Southey and British romanticism in the context of empire." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271784.
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Middleton, Alexander James. "British politics and the rethinking of empire, c. 1830-1855." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610256.
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Gladwin, Michael Robert. "Anglican clergymen in Australia and the British Empire, 1788-1850." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609842.
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McCullough, Kayli L. "Lady Maria Nugent: A Woman's Approach to the British Empire." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1345068824.
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Scott, Claude Fredrick. "Caring about the British Empire : British imperial activist groups, 1900-1967, with special reference to the Junior Imperial League and the League of Empire Loyalists." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2014. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/caring-about-the-british-empire(809239a7-4b1c-48cb-92e4-0410c3375e82).html.
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This thesis contributes to one of the main debates of British imperial history, the relevance of the Empire to British society. It examines a number of twentieth century imperial activist groups and discusses in detail the Junior Imperial League and the League of Empire Loyalists. It argues that the Junior Imperial League was an important imperially-minded organisation which gave valuable practical support to the Conservative party. It suggests that the imperialism of the League of Empire Loyalists had ideological roots in the imperialist ideas of the late nineteenth century has been overlooked by historians who have perceived it as relevant only to extreme right-wing politics. It suggests that both these groups have been given too little, or the wrong kind of, attention by historians. The first has simply been overlooked and the second has tended to be subsumed into a search for British fascism rather than studied as a specifically imperial body. The analysis of these two groups, in the general context of imperial group activism, hints at a reading of British imperial consciousness that it more subtle than the one in much current literature. Imperialism was neither ubiquitous nor non-existent. A substantial number of activists in Britain in the first half of the twentieth century, estimated to exceed a million, cared about the Empire in various ways and with a range of intensity. Members of imperial activist groups came from all classes, although the leadership of imperial activism was often upper-class. However, imperialism mattered most when it was most ‘banal’ and most intertwined with a broader political Conservatism. Members of the Junior Imperial League rarely saw their imperialism as controversial or something separate from their broader political vision. They associated it with the governance of the Empire, its defence, trading relationships, education, and Anglo-Saxon feelings of ‘kith and kin’. The League of Empire Loyalists revealed a different pattern of imperialism at a time when empire had become much more contested. The LEL mobilized people who saw empire as the salient feature of their own political identity. In many ways their central concerns were similar to those of the Junior Imperial League but their sense of their marginality revealed how far empire had moved from the mainstream of British politics.
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Herron, Laura Bender. "Borderlands: The British Empire and the Negotiation of Englishness, 1864-1914." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1408863223.
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Murphy, Sean. "Broadly speaking : Scots language and British imperialism." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11047.
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This thesis offers a three-pronged perspective on the historical interconnections between Lowland Scots language(s) and British imperialism. Through analyses of the manifestation of Scots linguistic varieties outwith Scotland during the nineteenth century, alongside Scottish concerns for maintaining the socio-linguistic “propriety” and literary “standards” of “English,” this discussion argues that certain elements within Lowland language were employed in projecting a sentimental-yet celebratory conception of Scottish imperial prestige. Part I directly engages with nineteenth-century “diasporic” articulations of Lowland Scots forms, focusing on a triumphal, ceremonial vocalisation of Scottish shibboleths, termed “verbal tartanry.” Much like physical emblems of nineteenth-century Scottish iconography, it is suggested that a verbal tartanry served to accentuate Scots distinction within a broader British framework, tied to a wider imperial superiorism. Parts II and III look to the origins of this verbal tartanry. Part II turns back to mid eighteenth-century Scottish linguistic concerns, suggesting the emergence of a proto-typical verbal tartanry through earlier anxieties to ascertain “correct” English “standards,” and the parallel drive to perceive, prohibit, and prescribe Scottish linguistic usage. It is argued that later eighteenth-century Scottish philological priorities for the roots and “purity” of Lowland Scots forms – linked to “ancient” literature and “racially”-loaded origin myths – led to an encouraged “uncovering” of hallowed linguistic traits. This renegotiated reverence for certain Lowland forms was bolstered by contemporary “diasporic” imaginings – envisioning, indeed pre-empting the significance of Scots migrants in the sentimental preservation of a seemingly-threatened linguistic distinction. Part III looks beyond Scotland in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Through a consideration of the markedly different colonial and “post-colonial” contexts of British India and the early American Republic, attitudes towards certain, distinctive Lowland forms, together with Scots' assertions of English linguistic “standards,” demonstrate a Scottish socio-cultural alignment with British imperial prestige.
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Wickman, Peter A. "China and the Origins of the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1212775759.
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Spence, Caroline Quarrier. "Ameliorating Empire: Slavery and Protection in the British Colonies, 1783-1865." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13070043.
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This dissertation examines the era of slavery amelioration while situating the significance of this project to reform slavery within the longer history of the British Empire. While scholars of British slavery have long debated the causes of both the abolition of the slave trade (1807) and the abolition of slavery (1833), they have overlooked the ways that both abolitionists and politicians attempted to "reform" slavery - extending both baseline protections and a civilizing mission toward slaves - as a prelude toward broader emancipation. This attempted amelioration of slavery influenced both the timing and form that emancipation took.
By focusing on the island where metropolitan officials first attempted to exert an ameliorative agenda, this dissertation uncovers the forgotten influence of Spanish laws and practices on British abolitionism. Trinidad was captured from Spain in 1797 during the heyday of abolitionist agitation, during an era when Spanish slave codes were gaining newfound attention among British reformers for their reputed benevolence. Despite local planter opposition, metropolitan officials elected to retain the island's Spanish legal structure following the Peace of Amiens. The Trinidad template for amelioration would be framed around the island's Spanish laws, notably the office of Protector of Slaves. This individual was imagined as an intermediary between master and slave, metropole and colony, epitomizing an attempt to infuse the slave regime with a modicum of imperial regulation.
The ideas behind amelioration survived the abolition of slavery. After Caribbean slavery was abolished between 1833 and 1838, the reforms that had been attempted in Trinidad and elsewhere over the previous decades came to inform the regulation of labor relationships, particularly immigrant labor, following in its wake. The process of negotiating reform - of slavery, indentured labor, and relations with indigenous peoples - had taught Colonial Office officials to distrust the instincts and activities of white colonial subjects. The Protector model proliferated in contexts of continued distrust during an era when metropolitan officials remained reluctant to exert more direct authority than necessary. This model would break down only in the wake of repeated failure. Until then, metropolitan officials hoped that local watchdogs would "protect" nonwhite and laboring subjects from abuse.History
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Phelan, Claire. "In The Vise Of Empire: British Impressment Of The American Sailor." Texas Christian University, 2008. http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-08082008-112708/.
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This dissertation examines the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth century issue of British impressment of American seamen. It evaluates the degree to which British insistence on the right to impress negatively impacted the American national psyche. It also highlights the disparity between the public sentiment and sympathy for those sailors impressed, and the paucity of practical and financial assistance given to those who suffered the hardship. By focusing on the experience from the perspective of the impressed mariners themselves, this project illustrates the devastating personal hardships that the practice had on this humble section of American history.
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Talbot, Michael. "British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire during the long eighteenth century." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.645966.
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Watson, Michael E. C. "Appropriating empire, the British North American vice-admirality judges, 1697-1775." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq21320.pdf.
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Gemelos, Michele. "Identity and the Empire : British Writing about New York, 1897-1931." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.508425.
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Joscelyn, Morgan T. "British Imperialism Of The Ottoman Empire Gender, Nationalism, And Cultural Changes." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/914.
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British imperialism of the Ottoman Empire is analyzed in terms of power and influence. Changes in gender roles, nationalism, and culture are all examined through the lens of imperialism. The discourse flows thematically and discusses brief histories of both Britain and the Ottoman Empire. The construction of the Imperial Museum created a unified image of the nation through the collection of material items. As a result of European imperialism, the Ottoman Empire developed a sense of national culture.
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Ahmad, Asma Sharif. "The British Enlightenment and ideas of Empire in India 1756-1773." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2005. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1785.
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This dissertation examines the relationship between Enlightenment political thought and the conduct of imperial affairs on the Indian subcontinent between 1756 and 1773. It is concerned with the ways in which Enlightenment ideas affected the response of politicians, thinkers, merchants and East India Company officials, to the Company's actions and conduct in Bengal. It seeks therefore to uncover the underlying political principles that informed debates regarding the future of Britain's connection with the acquired territories. At first, controversy raged between the Company and the British state over the question of property rights: in 1767 the British government tried to assert its right to the territorial revenues of Bengal that had been acquired by the Company in 1765. The government was not successful and the issue of ownership would remain unresolved in this period and beyond. However, as the Company began to appear incapable of managing and reforming its own affairs, the British government was forced to confront the question of what the best way of conducting policy in the east might be. This thesis makes use of an array of under-utilised printed sources - pamphlets, books and tracts - as well as analysing contemporary parliamentary debate, to recover the ways in which empire was both rationalised and theorised. The first part of the dissertation lays out the narrative of events, gives a brief sketch of ideologies of empire in Britain after 1690, and reviews the historiography on the East India Company's rise to power. It then proceeds, in part two, to set out the ways in which Enlightenment conceptions of a science of politics underpinned both the condemnation of the Company's government of Bengal and plans for its reform. In the third part of the thesis, particular attention is given to the thought of Sir James Steuart who was specifically approached by the Company to provide a solution to their monetary problems in Bengal. This was a brief that he fulfilled comprehensively, making use of the concept of self-interest, and revealing the rationale that he believed should inform the Company's commercial policy towards a British dependency. Throughout this work, the political ideas examined are situated in the broader context of debate regarding sociability, international trade, the nature and obligation of governments in general, and of the British constitution in particular.
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Crook, Christopher Thomas. "Empire and Europe : a reassessment of British foreign policies, 1919-1925." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2017. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/71476/.
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This thesis is a reassessment of British foreign policies from the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 until the Treaties of Locarno in 1925. It initially argues that much of the historiography of this period is unbalanced in its judgement of the different governments because it views them from a teleological perspective that fails to differentiate this period from the inter-war years as a whole. The problem with this approach is that the rise of Hitler and the causes of the Second World War became so dominant in such analyses that most issues within these years have only been judged within that wider context. The thesis argues that an assessment of the foreign policies between 1919 and 1925 must take greater account of all the diplomatic, military and economic difficulties in the years after the Great War, and also recognise the degree of stability achieved by the end of 1925. The difficulties included the expansion of the British Empire as a result of Versailles, ongoing financial and economic problems including wartime debts, the complexities of the Irish negotiations, and the major European issues that had not been resolved at Versailles. Britain was still a great power and its foreign policies are analysed both as an imperial power, including the newly acquired territories in the Middle East, and as a major European power. After an analysis of primary and secondary sources, it is argued that despite all the difficulties, and the seeds of long-term decline in imperial matters, British foreign policies contributed to greater stability in international affairs by the end of 1925. This is especially true of the achievements at Locarno in respect of Germany's western borders and in establishing Germany as an equal diplomatic partner. There were also no obvious new diplomatic hostages to fortune. Whether Britain and other powers could build on this greater stability after 1925 is a different issue, but that should not detract from recognition of the achievements during these six years.
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Neal, Stan. "Jardine Matheson and Chinese migration in the British Empire, 1833-1853." Thesis, Northumbria University, 2015. http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/31707/.
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This thesis examines the role of the British merchant firm Jardine, Matheson & Co. (Jardine Matheson) in promoting and facilitating Chinese migration into and around the British Empire between 1833 and 1853. It argues that existing historiography on Chinese migration has focused too heavily on the late-nineteenth century and has paid insufficient attention to earlier experiments with Chinese labour. The case study of Jardine Matheson also emphasises the varied roles played by commercial organisations in the British Empire. Existing work has focused on the role of the firm’s partners either as opium traders or elite businessmen in colonial Hong Kong, with little analysis of their interest and involvement in Chinese migration. By examining Jardine Matheson’s archive of letters and accounts, official colonial correspondence, parliamentary papers, newspapers, books, journals and periodicals, the thesis will shed light on both the changing perceptions and uses of Chinese migrant labour in various imperial contexts from the 1830s to the 1850s. Chinese migration to different colonial destinations, including Singapore, Assam, New South Wales and Ceylon, will be examined comparatively. The colonial case studies examined in the thesis demonstrate how imperial experiments with Chinese labour in the mid nineteenth century were dependent on the resources and networks of Jardine Matheson on the China coast. The firm’s publishing network simultaneously circulated ideas about Chinese migrants that were reproduced across the British Empire. Additionally, Anglo-Chinese contact zones that developed over the 1830s and 1840s were crucial to the formation of stereotypes about a specifically Chinese ethnic character and systems of onward migration to global destinations. This thesis demonstrates the importance of Jardine Matheson – as well as connected Western commercial organisations and individuals – in facilitating Chinese migration and creating demand for Chinese labour during a period of rapid change in the British Empire.
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Loh, Waiyee. "Empire of culture : contemporary British and Japanese imaginings of Victorian Britain." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2016. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/82122/.
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Since the 1980s and 1990s, cultural commodities produced in both Britain and Japan have enjoyed an upsurge in global popularity, giving rise to notions of “Creative Britain” and “Cool Japan.” As a result of this boom, British and Japanese governments have attempted to develop and/or collaborate with both domestic and foreign cultural industries as a solution to national economic decline. This turn to culture as a means of generating economic revenue is part of a global trend where neoliberal economic ideas converge with the rise of a “creative economy.” This thesis argues that the image of Victorian Britain in Japanese shōjo manga, as well as in British neo-Victorian fiction, suggests that the history of free trade and British imperialism in East Asia in the nineteenth century underpins this increasing emphasis on cultural commodity production and export in Britain and Japan. In other words, British and Japanese neo-Victorian texts published in the period 1980-present demonstrate that what we call “globalisation” today is deeply informed by economic relations and cultural hierarchies established between distant places in the nineteenth century. Recognising these connections between past and present helps us understand why the Japanese today “choose” to consume British “high” cultural goods, and why the Japanese state and cultural industries “choose” to focus their energies on exporting popular culture products. These “choices,” I argue, are historically conditioned by Japan’s encounter with the West, and especially Britain, in the nineteenth century, and the perception of British cultural superiority that this encounter has fostered. In examining the transnational networks that connect Britain and Japan in the nineteenth century and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, this thesis uses a “global history” framework to expand existing approaches to neo-Victorianism, girl culture in Japan, and World Literature.
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Melissa, Morris Nicole. "Diversions of Empire: Geographic Representations of the British Atlantic, 1589-1700." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1281120681.
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Jamroonjamroenpit, Ploy. "THE RUINS OF EMPIRE: British Responses to Ruins in Colonial India." Thesis, Department of History, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/7981.
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The different and changing meanings of the ruined form in the European consciousness point to its position as a discursive space, expressed in ideas of a ‘ruin motif’. However, most historical investigations into ruins have been concerned with classical structures in the European context. This thesis examines the operations of the ruin motif in the setting of nineteenth century-century colonial India through a study of John Benjamin Seely’s travel text The Wonders of Elora (1824) and James Fergusson’s The History of Architecture in All Countries (1874). It argues that the ruin motif was an important means by which the aims, difficulties and tensions in colonial discourses were articulated.
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David, James Corbett. "Dunmore's new world: Political culture in the British Empire, 1745--1796." W&M ScholarWorks, 2010. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539623561.
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Despite his participation in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, eventually became royal governor of New York (1770-1771), Virginia (17711783), and the Bahama Islands (1787-1796). His life in the British Empire exposed him to an extraordinary range of political experience, including border disputes, land speculation, frontier warfare and diplomacy, sexual scandal, slave emancipation, naval combat, loyalist advocacy, Amerindian slavery, and trans-imperial filibusters, to say nothing of his proximity to the Haitian Revolution or his role in the defense of the British West Indies during the French Revolutionary Wars. Quick to break with convention on behalf of the system that ensured his privilege, Dunmore was an usually transgressive imperialist whose career can be used to explore the boundaries of what was possible in the political cultures of the Anglo-Atlantic world at the end of the eighteenth century.;Remarkably, Lord Dunmore has not been the subject of a book-length study in more than seventy years. With a few exceptions (the work of African American historians notable among them), modern scholars have dismissed him as a greedy incompetent. While challenging this characterization, the dissertation makes several arguments about the weakness of royal authority in pre-Revolutionary New York and Virginia, the prominent and problematic role of the land grant as a mechanism of political consent, the importance of Dunmore's proclamation of emancipation, and the endurance of British ambition in North America after 1783. It seeks to make a methodological contribution as well. By positioning Dunmore as the epicenter of a web of interrelations, one reflected in a variety of historical texts and involving people at all levels of the imperial social structure, the dissertation suffuses a host of elements and actors within a single biographical narrative. This integrated approach can serve to counter the excessive compartmentalization that has marked some academic history in recent decades.